The external temperature of a handheld electronic device, for example, a smart phone, a smart watch, a virtual reality device, a tablet, etc., may be skin temperature limited for a user's comfort level and safety. In a handheld electronic device, the heat generated by the electronic chips located inside the handheld electronic device is distributed across the handheld electronic device's surface to reduce hot spots at the surface of the handheld electronic device. Natural convection is used to dissipate the heat generated in the handheld electronic device to the ambient environment. However, in some cases, natural convection may not provide sufficient heat dissipation to maintain the surface temperature of the handheld electronic device at or below skin temperature without impacting the performance of the handheld electronic device, e.g., due to reducing clock rate to reduce heat generation in the handheld electronic device. Therefore, there is a need for a cooling mechanism for a handheld electronic device which may be used in conjunction with natural convection to provide additional cooling capacity during an extended high power operation of the handheld electronic device that may maintain the handheld electronic device's surface temperature at or below skin temperature for a longer period of time before device performance is reduced. In particular, there is a need for a cooling technique that may increase the power envelope of a handheld electronic device by providing increased cooling capability for thermal mitigation for extended high power operation.